Trump takes first flight on Qatar-gifted Air Force One amid backlash over using taxpayer dollars

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday travelled to North Dakota for his first trip on the new Air Force One, a luxury Boeing 747-8 aircraft gifted by the Qatari government. Last month, the president introduced the $400 million aircraft as the replacement for the military-grade 747-2 that has transported US presidents for more than three decades.

It is pertinent to note that this gifted Boeing 747-8 is expected to remain in service until the US Air Force receives a new fleet of Boeing presidential aircraft in the next two years. The exchange of the controversial gift last year sparked bipartisan criticism of Trump.

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It intensified the conflict-of-interest debate. However, the White House repeatedly pushed back against the allegations of corruption and insisted that such donations were in full compliance with the law. Before departing from the Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, Trump celebrated the occasion, saying: “This will be the first flight of what I think is maybe the greatest commercial plane ever built.”

“I’m excited about the first flight. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it,” Trump declared. “They just completed it; they made it appropriate for a president – that means the security and all the different bells and whistles they put on – very complex stuff. But it’s really quite something.”

'We couldn't build a plane like this'

Trump went on to gush about the plane as he told reporters: “Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollars.” However, the Boeing 747-8 was originally built in the US.

Interestingly, in 2015, the Boeing 747-8 was first selected to become the next-generation Air Force One. At that time, US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James described it as “the only aircraft manufactured in the United States” that “meets the necessary capabilities established to execute the presidential support mission”.

Meanwhile, Trump also claimed that the aircraft required taxpayers to spend “very little” on upgrades “relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way”. He described it as “a gift from a country that’s treated us very well”.

The conversion of the Qatari Boeing 747 was estimated to cost $1 billion. It is intended to serve as a temporary “bridge” aircraft until two delayed presidential Boeing jets are delivered in 2027 and 2028. The project cost of those two specially built aircraft has increased from $3.7 billion to $5 billion.